State Duma

The State Duma is the lower house of the legislature of Russia, introduced in 1906 by the Russian Empire in response to the 1905 Russian Revolution. The Duma was the first elected parliament in Russian history, but it had very little power, and it was frequently dismissed and recalled. The Duma was abolished after the 1917 Russian Revolution, but it would be restored after the creation of the Russian Federation in 1992. The Duma was filled with "crooks and thieves" during the 2000s, with oligarchs having a large influence on the decisions of the Duma; in 2016, a ninth of Duma members had plagiarized academic degree theses. In 2016, the four major parties in Russia were the conservative United Russia party, the Communist Party of Russia, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, and the A Just Russia party.